Gourmandistan

Linzer Hearts still beating after all these years

December 17, 2011 by Steve

Michelle’s spattered and battered paperback edition of The Silver Palate Cookbook is full of notes, as during the Eighties it was one of our most-used volumes. We don’t turn to it much these days, as it seems a bit dated (Brie cheese baked in phyllo and a pound of butter, anyone?) and a bit embarrassing (why on earth did we note that baked garlic was “strange”?). But we keep the volume on our bookshelves, in large part because of these […]

Categories: Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

The agony and the apricot-y

December 10, 2011 by Michelle

Once upon a time, when much younger and much more energetic, Michelle made cookies to share with friends and family for the holidays. Of course, Michelle being who she is, these cookies were very, very good—but also took up very, very much of her time. Within a few years she was spending virtually the entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas obsessively thinking about cookies, making cookies, packaging cookies and distributing cookies to a growing number of people, constantly trying to […]

Categories: Chocolate, Christmas, Cookies, Cooking, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

An “au revoir/auf wiedersehen” to apples

December 4, 2011 by Michelle

Steve has probably purchased his last batch of local apples for the year, and since he snacks on several per day (there are many, many doctors out there, after all) he’ll soon be buying what he calls “crapples” at the grocery. Michelle, however, has higher standards, and refuses to cook with the flown- and trucked-in Braeburns, Fujis or sappy-sweet HoneyCrisps that Steve brings home. While that means Tarte Tatin and apple clafoutis must wait until next fall, Michelle recently managed […]

Categories: Apples, Cooking, Food, France, Fruit Desserts, Nuts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes

Brassicas (broccoli + cauliflower) and the last bit of bitching about winter

November 30, 2011 by Michelle

A combination of Thanksgiving over-planning and continued concern over our vanishing seasonal vegetables recently deposited pounds of broccoli and golden cauliflower in our refrigerator. But thanks to Michelle (and of course, our voracious and demonstrably-upset-at-the-arrival-of-cold chickens), very little of our efflorescence of florets went to waste. One preparation was a last-minute substitute for a creamier broccoli salad, as we realized our Thanksgiving meal’s butterfat quotient was beginning to approach Brillat-Savarin cheese levels. This version mixed broccoli and golden cauliflower into […]

Categories: Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cooking, Food, Recipes, Salad, Soups & Stews, Vegetarian

Curried winter squash soup: If it’s farm share, it’s still summer, right?

November 18, 2011 by Steve

We are grimly staring down the onset of winter, scheming how to maximize the local and sustainable parts of our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner and dreading that time of year when we’re forced back into the produce section of Whole Foods. Defying the early darkness and bitter chill of these mid-November evenings, Michelle still gathers what herbs remain in our garden after several killing frosts. Our carrots have dwindled to a few gnarled roots, and we’re no longer sure which of […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Recipes, Soups & Stews, Vegetarian, Winter squash

We just can’t quitaly: butternut squash & mushroom ravioli en brodo

November 13, 2011 by Michelle

Yeah, we wrote earlier about avoiding Italian. But Steve never meant for ravioli to be included in that resolution. He still looks for just about any excuse to make pasta, especially now he knows 00 flour is available locally in 5-kilo bags. And while we still have a pile of butternut and other winter squash on our counter, this batch actually came about as we prepared to greet our new upright freezer. (Hail, god of chilly overabundance! Thank you for […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Italy, Mushrooms, Pasta, Recipes, Vegetarian, Winter squash

End-of-summer cilantro, carnitas and the end of corn tortillas

November 5, 2011 by Steve

Several frosty mornings have shown that summer has passed in Gourmandistan. Despite the cold and dwindling daylight, we’ve had a sudden bloom of cilantro in our herb garden (in and outside the raised bed), and decided it was the perfect excuse to make carnitas. Steve was ready to melt down his homemade lard and get to deep-frying some pork chunks, but Michelle thought there might be a less messy and dangerous way to deal with the boneless pork shoulder we’d […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Mexico, Pork

That low, slow road to Morocco

October 28, 2011 by Steve

Gourmandistan cannot claim expertise on Morocco. American popular culture leads us to believe the North African country has an Express that leaves the smell of gardens in your hair, a certain avenue leading to Dorothy Lamour, and shockingly, gambling at Rick’s in Casablanca. Of course, Wikipedia can further enlighten us, but we’d rather turn to the pages of Claudia Roden’s Arabesque. We found this particular dish when searching for a way to deal with a lamb-share primal shoulder. Whole shoulders […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Lamb, Morocco, Pasta, Recipes

Struggle, strive, squash.

October 19, 2011 by Steve

Winter squash is work. Peeling is a chore and cutting can be terrifying, as the heavy flesh resists even the sharpest knives. And many times our local squash can be a little disappointing, our butternuts and acorns lacking a certain sugariness that we’ve found in French potimarron and Italian zucca. Michelle spends much time at local markets searching for something that appears close to these champions of cucurbitae. And when she finds a suitable candidate she faces even more work, […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, France, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian, Winter squash

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